Paths of Fate-Full Circle
by Freline
Summary: Just before Elfangor is about to die, he receives a visit from the Ellimist, who confesses that he made a mistake and gives him a chance to be with Loren and Tobias again and to lead the Animorphs.
1. Chapter 1

Elfangor tried to ignore the pain in his side, where he had been thrown against the wall of his fighter, as the Yeerks had hit it. He knew that he had to land on Earth before they caught up to him, if he wanted a chance to rescue Aximili, his younger brother, from wherever the dome had gone down after it had been separated from the ship. He dodged another Dracon beam from the Blade ship and slowly approached the only open area he could see. A few minutes after he had landed, he saw them for the first time:

Five human children, two girls and three boys were standing there with open mouths, watching him land. They stared at his fighter as if they could not believe what they just saw. He sent out a thought-speech message to them, telling them not to be afraid, before he opened the door and walked outside. They looked even more like they hoped it was just a dream. Knowing that the Yeerks would be here any moment and that he had not much time left, he informed them of the enemy and the races they used as hosts.

Then the Yeerk ships landed not far away from his own. Visser Three came out first. Over the years since Elfangor had last seen him, he had apparently become more and more evil, it was almost like he could taste it. The Visser held a long speech, which Elfangor tried to ignore. Then at the end, he morphed into a creature from a planet near the Andalite homeworld. He felt himself picked up and lifted into the air. The Visser opened his mouth, that was full of very sharp teeth, ready to swallow Elfangor whole.

Just before he could do that, time stopped, the Ellimist appeared and suddenly he was back at the house where he had lived with Loren. A little boy stood in the middle of the living room, making his first steps, while Loren stood behind him and urged him on. The Ellimist was next to him and he said: "I must apologize to you, I have made a mistake by separating you from your family. Now I am giving you two choices: You can either decide to die right here or you can fight along the children and your brother. If you decide to live and fight, I will return Loren´s memories to her and you will have another chance to be happy with her."

A second after he agreed to fight, Elfangor found himself in human morph, a safe distance away from the controllers. His pain was gone and as he looked back to the Visser, he saw a piece of an Andalite fall out of his mouth. He heard the Ellimist´s voice in his head: "I have created a copy of you to let Visser Three believe he killed you. You can safely train the children and reveal yourself to him when the time has come."

Silently, Elfangor thanked the Ellimist before he turned around and walked away, promising himself to look for the children and give them the power to morph.


	2. Chapter 2

Arbron slithered out the Blade ship with the other Taxxons. He kept back just enough to be able to control the hunger, but not too far for the Yeerks to suspect anything. When it was over and Elfangor was dead, he separated himself from the others and went deeper into the empty buildings. At this moment he noticed the man. Even though Arbron did not know him, he had something familiar that made him curious. He quickly burrowed a tunnel into the ground and followed the stranger.

After about an hour they had reached the woods and the man hid behind a big tree a short distance from the path while Arbron watched him from a spot where the other could not see him. After two minutes, an Andalite emerged from behind the tree, an Andalite that had just died one hour ago. Before he could stop himself, he called out: "Elfangor, is that you?" The Andalite immediately looked shocked, his stalk eyes moving in all directions.

Arbron came out of hiding and slowly moved towards him, while he continued talking: "Elfangor, it is me, your old friend Arbron. Please do not attack. I am here to help you." Elfangor slowly calmed down and let him come closer. Arbron stopped about five metres away from his friend, but before he was able to do anything else, he heard a voice in his head, that was not Elfangor`s. It simply said: "I will give you the same chance I gave your friend. You were not supposed to become stuck in morph, so I will undo this, if you agree to stay on Earth with your friend and the others you will meet soon and do your best to fight the Yeerks." Like Elfangor before him, Arbron did not have to think for very long, before he agreed.

Then he suddenly found himself change back to Andalite. It was really good to be out of the Taxxon body and to have his hooves again. He had been stuck as a Taxxon for so long that he had almost forgotten how it had been. He spent several hours just standing on the grass to remind himself that it was not a dream, while Elfangor told him everything that had happened since he had been left behind on the Taxxon homeworld. The pain of his friend over losing Loren and his son had made him sad as well, but at least Elfangor had given the change to have a family for a while, even though he had been forced to return to the homeworld and missed seeing his son grow up. After the story had been finished, they sat there in silence until it was night and they had to find a place where they could stay in their natural forms without accidently being spotted. They finally found an old barn in a field that looked like it was going to collapse soon. It had definitely not been used a long time, but the door was halfway closed, so they hid in a dark corner on the side where the door was.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Elfangor was woken up by loud thought-speech curses. He walked outside and immediately had to keep himself from laughing at his friend. Apparently, Arbron had tried to practise tail-fighting, but had not watched for the trees and now his tail was stuck in a tree trunk and he could not get it free on his own. He was so busy trying to pull it out, that he only noticed Elfangor after he was only two metres away.

Seeing his expression, Arbron growled at him and pulled even harder, which caused him to fall to the ground. Then Elfangor decided to take pity on him, morphed to human and pulled himself. The tail became free and Arbron stood up, looked at him and then walked away. He returned a few minutes later, holding a bird which had broken his wing and could not fly anymore. Arbron and Elfangor both acquired it, then they looked down at it.

They knew that there was no way that they could heal it, so Elfangor lifted his tail and put the bird out of it´s misery. They buried it in a grave that was deep enough to keep predators away, like all Andalites did, when they found a dead animal, no matter the size.

After that was finished, they fed on the grass, which tasted really sweet, to get strength for the mission they had planned today. They had decided that they would try to look for the children that Elfangor had seen at his landing place and if they could find anything about what the Yeerks were planning.

At the moment they had an advantage, since Visser Three did not know that Elfangor had survived and that Arbron was with him again. The only one missing now was Loren, then the old team from the Taxxon homeworld would be together again. But Elfangor was sure that they would find her soon and with her they might even be able to come up with a plan to free Alloran from the Visser´s grasp.

A few minutes later they had morphed to birds and were flying towards the town. They were high up, to stay out of sight, but still able to see anything on the ground. It was an hour into their morphing time, when Elfangor noticed a blonde girl that looked a lot like one of the children he had seen. He pointed her out to Arbron and they started following her, until they had only half an hour left. Luckily, she had reached her home in the meantime.

Since they thought they had found one of them, they returned to the barn and demorphed. They decided to keep an eye on her in shifts, since it was possible that the Yeerks had seen her and the others, which meant that Elfangor and Arbron had to get to them all first, before they were found and made into Controllers.


	4. Chapter 4

The big blue centaur with the four eyes and the bladed tail looked directly into Loren´s eyes, while the two other monsters that looked like giant lawn-mowers on two legs stood guard. One of them held a grey slug to the prisoners head. While it crawled inside, he screamed. Somehow she knew that the name of the prisoner was Alloran and that she had seen him before, but she did not remember where. She did not exactly remember much from the time of her accident, but she sometimes dreamt of Alloran and two others, called Elfangor and Arbron. They had been in a strange place together, where every spot was crawling with giant cannibalistic worms.

Somehow she knew that it had all been real and that she had once had a special relationship with the one called Elfangor, but could not exactly say what kind it had been. She also remembered that she had born a son called Tobias. Was Elfangor his father? If he was, then why was he not still with her? And where was Tobias? She knew that it would sound insane if she told anyone that she believed to have a son with an alien, but she did not found it strange, as she had seen Elfangor change shapes in her dreams many times, even to human.

Then the dream changed again and she sat tied up in a corner of something that looked like a space ship, seeing a man piloting it to the planet of the worms. Once he had landed, he pulled her up and outside, where the worms and the walking lawn-mowers waited. As always she shot out of bed, when her head was pushed in the muddy pool and one of the grey slugs entered her ear, making it impossible to move on her own. She watched herself walking away, but not under her own power anymore.

Over the last months these dreams had become more and more frequent and she knew that there would be a big change in her life very soon. She got out of bed slowly and walked over to the door. She switched on the light and looked at the clock. It was only three in the morning, but Loren knew that she would not be able to sleep anymore. She went downstairs, put on her jacket and walked out the door. She went to the park that was only five minutes away, sat down on a bench and looked up to the stars, wondering if Elfangor was still out there somewhere or if he was dead. She sat there until the sun began to rise and that was where she spotted them:

Two birds of prey were circling over the city, really close together, which was a completely unusual behaviour. Once they were directly above her, they abruptly stopped, remained in place for about two minutes and then flew away. Loren stood up and started to walk home. She was so confused with the behaviour of the birds that she did not notice them following her home and then sitting on the roof of her house for a while, watching her, before they rose into the sky again and disappeared.


	5. Chapter 5

Alloran tried to shield himself from Esplin´s thoughts as he started to replay the death of Elfangor again. It had been that way for about a week now. Esplin knew all secrets he had and he really enjoyed to torment him. He was so busy with shouting that he did almost not notice the guards with the tranquilizer, before they were almost next to him. One of them, a Hork-Bajir, held his blades to Alloran´s throat, ready to cut, should the Visser´s host try anything. In the meantime, Esplin slithered out of his ear and the other guards shot the spray on him, making it impossible to resist as they led him towards the cage they had reserved especially for him and shoved him inside, before they locked the door.

His legs immediately collapsed and he fell to the floor. He laid there helplessly, not even able to move his tail. Then the memories started to return, as they always did. He often wondered if Esplin had done something to his head to only let him remember the things he had done since his capture, but not anything from before. Whenever he tried to remember something like his life on the Andalite homeworld there was simply nothing. He was barely able to remember the name of his wife Jahar, but nothing else.

It seemed like an eternity, but finally he was taken to the pool again. Lately he found himself welcoming Esplin´s presence in his head more and more, as it gave him a chance to pull back for some time. During the years, watching everything Esplin did had become painful to the point where Alloran started to wish for his own death. Whenever he thought about killing himself in the few hours he was free, Esplin would give his guards orders to never let him out of sight. Then they always sent one Hork-Bajir in the cage with him, who had a blade on his throat the entire time.

Just as they were getting ready to push his head down, something exploded and the ceiling collapsed. A piece hit Alloran on the head, knocking him out. When he came around again, he felt that Esplin was back in his head. The Yeerk told him that they would go to a waiting transport that would bring them to Visser One´s personal ship, where they would live for the foreseeable future, on her specific request. Alloran was not sure what to think about the new development, but he knew the Yeerks. Whatever they had planned for him, it would definitely not be anything good.


	6. Chapter 6

Rachel woke up early and felt like she had only slept five minutes. Whenever she was alone, with nothing to distract her, the scene from the construction site kept playing in her head. She knew that the others were feeling the same and she hoped that they would someday find a way to forget it at least temporarily. She sneaked out of her room, trying not to wake her mother or her sisters, went down to the kitchen and started making herself breakfast.

When she was almost done, someone knocked at the door. Rachel took the pan from the stove and hid it behind her back, before she went to answer it. She opened it slowly, ready to shut it again at the first sign that the visitor might be a Controller. But as she looked outside, there was no one in sight, only a dove sat in the old apple tree.

Thinking that someone had pulled a joke at her, she started to close the door again, but stopped as she heard a voice in her head. It sounded just like the Andalite at the construction site, but he was dead, she had seen him get eaten by Visser Three. Could it be that he had not been the only one of his race on Earth? She walked outside and stretched her hand out for the dove, which immediately landed on it. Then she heard the voice again: "Yes, you are right. I have knocked on the door. I needed to find you before the Yeerks. I hope you and your friends can arrange a meeting with us this afternoon. I have some things to explain to you all. "

At first Rachel was speechless, then she described the way to Cassie´s barn. The Andalite took off in the sky before Rachel was able to ask what he meant with "us". Then her mother appeared and called her back inside, telling her that it would soon be time to go to school. When she got there, she was so distracted that she missed the bell and had to be pulled to the classroom by Cassie, who had the first class together with her, fortunately. When they entered, the teacher, Mr. Tidwell, looked at them sternly, but said nothing. The hours until the break seemed to stretch endlessly, but as soon as Rachel finally walked towards her usual table in the cafeteria, Jake, Marco, Cassie and Tobias were already waiting for her.

She quickly pulled a sheet of paper and a pen out of her bag, on which she wrote: "I think I have been contacted by another Andalite this morning. I have arranged a meeting with him in Cassie´s barn this afternoon. From what he said, it is possible that he is not alone, so we need to be careful, in case it is a trap. I suggest that Cassie, Jake and I go first, while Marco and Tobias wait out of sight, to provide backup if necessary." The others nodded, but Tobias and Marco seemed to have doubts at their chance to overpower one or more Andalites, if Rachel´s visitor was really not alone and it turned out to be a trap.


	7. Chapter 7

Cassie arrived at the barn long before the time they had agreed on. She could not help herself, she was just too fascinated by the thought of meeting two Andalites. When she got there, she noticed two birds sitting on a rafter just beyond the roof. They quickly fluttered down and landed on the ground, then they started to demorph. After they were finished, she stared at them, she just could not believe what she saw. One of them looked exactly like Elfangor, the one that was supposed to be dead. They had all seen him getting eaten by Visser Three.

He noticed her expression and said: "You remember correctly. I am Elfangor and my friend is called Arbron. Until recently he has been trapped as a Taxxon, but we both received help from someone I met long ago. This person gave Arbron back his old body and restored his power to morph. He also tricked the Visser into believing he killed me by creating a dead copy of me."

Just as he had finished, Jake, Rachel, Tobias and Marco walked in. Although they were supposed to wait until it was sure the meeting was not a trap, Marco and Tobias looked like they had not been able to control their curiosity any longer. After they were all inside, Elfangor repeated the story. Then he offered them the power to morph. They quickly held a vote. Marco was the only one against it at first, but he agreed after Jake had talked to him privately a few minutes. Elfangor told them to stand in a circle and touch a device he had pulled from his pocket with their hands.

It was over after just two seconds. Cassie went to one of the cages that held an injured woodpecker. She took it out and concentrated. Then she put it back, turned to the others and started to shrink. Before they could blink, she had become an exact copy of the other bird. She spread her wings, flew towards Jake and landed on his shoulder, where she sat until she decided that she had demonstrated enough.

When she was completely Cassie again, it had started to get dark, so they all decided to head to the Gardens at the weekend to acquire some animals that could be useful in a fight. Then Rachel, Tobias and Marco headed home, while Jake stayed a while longer. He wanted to help Cassie find a place for Elfangor and Arbron to hide. It did not take long, then Jake walked Cassie home, before he left as well.


	8. Chapter 8

The next day, Elfangor was in his human morph, walking into the city. Arbron was beside him, morphed into a dog he had acquired this morning. They hoped to find an entrance to the local Yeerk pool. They had just demorphed in a public toilet and were coming out again, when they saw a familiar face. Chapman, the one who had sold all of his own species out to the Yeerks, was walking down the street. Elfangor immediately began following him. He ignored Arbron, that had been left behind quickly, shouting at him in thought-speech: "Elfangor, stop! If he is a Controller and notices you are following him, he will alert every other Yeerk he knows and if that happens, I can not help you. I do not have a human morph yet, you know! Elfangor, you idiot, if you do not stop at once I will go to Loren. Maybe she can talk sense into you." But Elfangor was already too far away and did not hear him anymore. Sighing to himself, Arbron turned and walked into the direction of Loren´s house. When he got there, she was not home. He quickly demorphed in her garden, fed for a while and then morphed back to dog, just seconds before she came back. He slowly went towards her and licked her hand after she began stroking him. It felt good, but he could not waste time that his friend probably did not have. So he turned to her and started talking: "Loren, please listen to me. I am Arbron, Elfangor´s friend. Do you remember us?" He saw her expression going from shocked to worried in seconds.

She motioned for him to come into the house, where she asked him to demorph, which he did. Then she said: "Yes, I do remember both of you. I have lost my memory a few years ago, but it started to come back recently. Where is Elfangor? Please do not tell me that he has gotten himself into danger again. I remember that he used to do this a lot the first year we were married." After she had looked Arbron into the eyes, she visibly slumped and whispered: "Oh God, I knew it. He is after Chapman again, am I right? Come, maybe we can stop my foolish husband before he gets into the Yeerk pool." She led him towards the only entrance Elfangor had found during the time they were married.

Unfortunately they got there too late. Elfangor laid in front of the building where the entrance was, surrounded by Chapman and a few others. One of them was Visser Three in human morph. No one that had faced him before could ever forget the evil aura that seemed to hang around him like a cloud. They had beaten him up badly and were now in the process of taking him with them, down into the pool, were Arbron and Loren could not follow them until they had a plan of freeing him. If they acted too soon, they would share Elfangor´s fate. They only had one chance: They had to include the teenagers and Elfangor´s brother as well, if they were able to rescue him from the ship on the bottom of the ocean.

Elfangor felt like his complete body was on fire. He barely noticed Visser Three and his companions pulling him up from the ground. Two of them took his arms, one on each side and led him to the stairs. He could hardly stand, let alone fight, but he made himself as heavy as possible and soon the Controllers that were holding him, panted heavily, as they were half carrying, half dragging him downwards. Despite his best efforts they reached the bottom, where the Yeerk pool was, much earlier than he would have liked. The Controllers let him fall to the floor like a sack of rubbish. He laid there, unable to move, until they had stopped long enough to catch their breath. They dragged him along behind them, towards the Yeerk pool. They soon reached the pier, where the infestation was taking place and pushed his head down. He felt a Yeerk enter his head almost immediately. The parasite slowly gained strength and soon Elfangor was looking at himself helplessly, while the Yeerk demorphed back to Andalite.

If he still had been able to, he would have slapped himself for being so careless. Somehow seeing Chapman again had pushed his common sense away and due to his stupidity the Yeerks now had two Andalite Controllers. After hearing him think that way for a while, the Yeerk said: "Do not worry, I will keep your secret. I will tell the Visser that he was mistaken by assuming you are Elfangor. We Yeerks are not all the same, some of us can not stand the cries of involuntary hosts. I will get you out of here. What happens then is up to you. Either you let me stay in your head or I will die in three days."


	9. Chapter 9

One hour after the Yeerk, Arliss 890, had crawled in Elfangor´s head, they were sitting in the cafeteria of the pool. The more Arliss told him about himself and the others like him, the more Elfangor started to realize that not all Yeerks were as evil as he had been told since he could remember. And then he had an idea and asked: "Arliss, if I allow you to stay and you tell the Visser the truth about me, do you think he would reward you by letting you keep me as host and promote you?" Arliss thought about it, then he answered: "It is possible. But are you sure you want that? Everything I heard about you were stories about how you hated my race."

Elfangor laughed and replied: "I think those stories were very much exaggerated. The Yeerks hated my race just as much as the Andalites hated you. I have already broken Andalite law by giving the morphing power to humans. I think I can go a step further and become a voluntary Andalite controller. I will never return to the Andalite world anyway, it does not feel like home any longer. I have family here on Earth and I want to stay with them. I have missed watching my son grow up, but now I can try to make it up to him and my wife. I am not what you would call a normal Andalite, just like you are not a normal Yeerk."

This was enough to convince Arliss to agree to the plan. They remained in the cafeteria until one of the Visser´s personal guards appeared to tell them that Arliss was expected to give his report. It went exactly like they had hoped. The Visser let Arliss keep Elfangor as host and promoted him to Sub-Visser 24, appointing him to be his personal assistant. That was even better, now they had the chance to sabotage the Visser´s plans from the inside, but they needed to be very careful if they did not want to be suspected. Since they did not want to harm any other controllers, except maybe the Taxxons, this was going to be very dangerous. Before the meeting was over, the Visser gave the order that they would be expected to accompany him to his Blade ship in just two hours. This would not be enough time to contact the others, but they quickly wrote a message, flew over to the barn, where they left it and then returned in time to get on the transport with the Visser and his guards.

They were in space, approaching the Blade ship just five minutes later. They all went aboard, the ship started the engines and then the Visser turned around, a smile on his face: "Now we will head to the Andalite homeworld. I want to capture the family of my dear host. Maybe he will not resist as much, when I have them as prisoners." Elfangor could not believe what he heard, he could barely imagine how hearing that must be for Alloran. Despite his host´s thoughts, Arliss managed to keep calm, so the Visser did not notice anything. Soon they were dismissed, which was a relief for both of them, they did not think they could have kept the act up much longer.


	10. Chapter 10

p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Arbron stared at the note that Cassie had given him for a long time. He just could not believe that Elfangor would do something like this. He had known that his friend had done a lot of strange things in the years since they had last seen each other. But he would never had thought that the endless war had driven him to become a voluntary Controller, so that he could try to end the war from the inside. If it was even Elfangor himself and not the Yeerk that had written the message./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He looked at Loren, who was standing behind him, before he handed her the paper and walked away. Elfangor´s decision made him question everything they had heard the adults say about the Yeerks, that they were all evil and the galaxy would be a better place without them. But he had also heard about Andalites doing things to them that no living creature would ever have deserved. He had always written these stories off as rumors with no truth behind them, but now he was not so sure anymore. If Elfangor had really made this decision on his own free will, then maybe neither the Andalites nor the Yeerks were all as black and white as they had been led to believe./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Arbron ran full speed during the dark forest, back to the hiding place. He heard that Loren was somewhere behind him, trying to keep up, but he had soon lost her. He needed to be alone right now, to think about what this could mean for him, for Loren and for the human children. He stopped by a stream, put one hoof in the water and started to drink. When he was not thirsty anymore, he walked over to the tree where he used to sleep since he had returned to his natural form and closed all four of his eyes./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"But he had not slept for long, before he was woken by a voice in his head, calling him from far away: "Here I am, my life is going towards the end. If you hear me, come. If you hear me, come." It had been definitely the voice of an Andalite, trapped underwater somewhere and the only other one he knew, aside from himself, Elfangor and Visser Three, was Elfangor´s brother, Aximili. But whoever it was, needed help immediately. Luckily, the children did not have to go to school the next day, so they all met in the barn in the afternoon. It turned out that Cassie and Tobias had heard the call as well. They discussed which morphs they could use for an underwater search, until they finally decided on something they called dolphins./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"They waited near the Gardens until closing, then the children and Loren slipped inside through the back entrance, while Arbron simply flew over the fence. He landed next to the dolphins, looking around. When he was sure that no one could see him, he demorphed and slowly put out his hand to acquire it. When he was done, the others walked in. They also quickly acquired the animals, then they went back the way they came, after having decided to start the search tomorrow morning./p 


	11. Chapter 11

p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The trip to the Andalite homeworld was uneventful. Elfangor and Arliss were left alone most of the time, which was fine by them. If the Visser was not around, they did not have to act as if Elfangor was an involuntary host. They were called just as the approach to the planet was almost over. After they were at the predefined waiting place, the engines were stopped and several cloaked bug fighters were sent out, along with the ship that would transport the prisoners. Elfangor and Arliss watched their movements from the bridge, along with Visser Three, who seemed to be really excited about having Alloran´s family here soon./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"A short time from the planet, the majority of the fighters exploded due to bombs that Arliss had placed in the fuel tanks directly before the start. Only two reached the planet along with the transport. They returned an hour later with the prisoners, but were punished anyway, as they had not gotten all of them. Alloran´s wife and daughter were aboard, his son was missing. During the flight back to Earth, they stayed out of the prisoners sight, as they knew that they would see Elfangor as a traitor. They wanted to wait until they would be able to talk to them alone, without the Visser listening and that could only happen if Alloran was freed./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"After the landing, they quickly excused themselves and the Visser let them go without a word. They went to the barn, but no one was there. They waited until it was dark, then they returned to the forest to sleep. The next morning they were woken by the familiar feeling of a tail-blade held to the throat. Arliss opened Elfangor´s eyes and looked at the group in front of them. Arbron was there, along with Loren, the children and Aximili. The children looked very disappointed and he could understand them. It had been him who had given them the power to morph and told them to fight the Yeerks, only to accept one in his head a short time later. Arbron, Loren and Aximili seemed to be more sympathetic. Arbron and Loren had been with him on the Taxxon homeworld and Aximili was his brother./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"They all knew what the war had taken out of him. A long time ago he had thought that he fought for a good cause, but now he only wanted it to end, no matter how. Even if that meant to become a voluntary Controller and side with the Yeerk peace movement, as he had started to call Arliss and the others like him. One after the one, they left, until only Arbron and Aximili were still with him. Arbron said: "Do not worry, old friend. I am sure the children will understand soon. Now you must tell us what exactly happened." To make sure they believed it was really him talking, he asked Arliss to come out, which he did. Elfangor put him in a nearby pond, where he could stay for a while. Then he started to tell them his story. He talked until Aximili was getting tired, then he decided to keep the rest for tomorrow. He put his hand in the pond and soon Arliss touched it. Elfangor put his newest ally back in his head, then he closed his eyes and fell asleep./p 


	12. Chapter 12

Jake sat on his bed, reading a book to try and distract himself from everything that happened the last few days. First, the alien called Elfangor, member of the Andalite race, who he had believed to be dead had showed up again, along with a friend that had formerly been trapped in Taxxon morph. Then after a week, his girlfriend Cassie and his friend Tobias had received a message from Elfangor´s younger brother Ax, who had fallen into the ocean with the remains of the Andalite ship.

Together with Elfangor´s human wife Loren and his friend Arbron they had rescued him, before Visser Three could find him. After this was over, Loren had told them that she had a son with Elfangor, who just happened to be Tobias. As if this had not been enough, Elfangor had been captured by the Yeerks, made into a controller and was now working together with his Yeerk, who claimed to be part of some peace movement, whose members could not stand the cries of involuntary hosts. It was really hard to believe that the one who had warned them of the Yeerks, should trust one of them now.

Before that revelation, Jake had thought the Andalite would be a good leader, but now he was not sure anymore. He stood up and had just started to walk around his room restlessly, when he heard something at his window. He looked up and saw an osprey outside, flapping the wings to stay in the air. Three more birds were sitting in the trees outside.

He grinned, locked the door to prevent anyone from accidently coming in. Then he opened the window, morphed to peregrine falcon and joined his friend outside. They flew in the direction of the forest, where they hoped they could talk without being heard. They landed near a small lake, demorphed and sat down on the ground. Cassie put her arm around his shoulder and said: "Since the last days have been the weirdest of our entire life, I believe we should discuss what we are going to do now. I trust Elfangor, I believe he was telling the truth when he said he is working with that Yeerk on his free will. What do you think?" Jake looked around. Everyone except Tobias seemed to have doubts, but this was to be expected since Elfangor was his father. Rachel thought for a while, then she agreed with Cassie, which left Jake and Marco. Soon, after thinking for a while, Jake decided to follow his friends example. Seeing that he was overruled, Marco threw his arms in the air and said: "I give up. I am in as well. I trust Jake and if he trusts that alien, I do as well, until he proves otherwise."

After the matter was out of the way, they went their separate ways. Rachel grabbed Cassie by the arm, dragging her away. Over her shoulder she called: "We are going shopping. I hope you have fun the rest of the day." While the girls were walking away, Cassie turned around to Jake, giving him a pleading look that said: "Please rescue me from this mad girl that is my best friend." Jake shrugged his shoulders in reply. When Rachel was in that mood, no one could stop her.


	13. Chapter 13

The flight to Visser One´s ship had been delayed due to technical problems, but now they were on their way there. To Alloran, nothing that happened the last few days made sense. He had watched Esplin killing Elfangor, only to see him again a few days later in the Yeerk pool. He was very much alive and had just become the second Andalite controller. Alloran had never thought that Esplin would allow any other Yeerks to have an Andalite host, but the parasite had just laughed at this and told him that he had special plans for his greatest enemy. He would be the one to lead the infiltration of the Andalite homeworld. Some days later they had gone on a trip to the planet, where Esplin planned to take his family in order to make him easier to control.

Alloran knew that this would never happen, as Jahar and the children would rather kill themselves. On arrival, almost all the ships sent to the planet had exploded. Only three, two bug fighters and a transport ship had reached the destination. They returned one hour later with Jahar and Mairana, Alitram was missing. Esplin had killed the unfortunate controllers that had survived for not bringing him too. He was in an especially bad mood when they had returned to Earth. All Controllers on the ship had kept a mile away from him, they did not want to get killed just for getting in his sight.

Elfangor´s Yeerk kept to himself the entire flight, which made Alloran grateful for not having to see the other Andalite all the time. He could still remember the day he had been taken. The first time after that he had thought it had been entirely Elfangor´s fault for not noticing sooner. But then he had reminded himself that he had just been an Aristh at the time and had not known better, as he had never seen Yeerks outside of the classroom before. Since that day he had learned quickly and had become a highly respected war prince.

If he had been able to, Alloran would have congratulated him personally. He repeated the thought regularly, just to make Esplin angry. It did not have any consequences for him, as Esplin would only hurt himself. Instead, he took it out on the first random controller that was unfortunate enough to make a mistake or just cross his way. Elfangor´s status made the fact he had become a controller even more sad. He would be able to bring Yeerks to the homeworld easily and no one there would ever suspect him.


	14. Chapter 14

Cassie was sitting on a low stone wall in the centre of the forest, watching the three Andalites practising tail-fighting. It was nothing like she had ever seen before. Currently Elfangor seemed to have the upper hand, he had just pushed Arbron into a tree and was now focusing on his brother. Ax was way faster than him, but he did not appear to have been training much before he came to Earth. The fight was over before she could even realize it. She walked over to them and placed the bag with the food she had brought on the ground. Ax and Elfangor turned human instantly and grabbed some of it. Before they could eat everything, Cassie took the rest and walked over to Arbron, who did not have a human morph yet. She crumbled it to small pieces and let them fall into the grass in front of his hooves.

He smiled at her, then he walked over the grass where she had dropped the food. After he had finished, he said: "If you continue to bring me something like this, you will always be my Princess, Cassie." She felt the blood rushing to her cheeks at this compliment. She had never thought of herself like this, but since they had arrived, Arbron and Ax had always asked her instead of anyone else, whenever they wanted to know something about Earth.

Even Elfangor, the famous Andalite hero regularly asked her opinion. When she asked him why, he had replied:" As you know, I have lived on Earth for a few years. I have never seen someone treating animals the way you do and I truly respect you for this. On the Andalite homeworld, we give every animal, no matter how small or big it may be the respect it deserves. Whenever we see an animal dying or already dead, we give it a regular burial, as if it was one of our relatives.

I may have been chosen to lead you in battle, but when I and Arliss are busy with playing Visser Three´s second in command, you will take my place. I have watched you all in the last few weeks. I have come to the conclusion that Jake is too serious, Marco is too childish, Rachel is too reckless and Tobias is my son. I do not want to trouble him further, he has had it hard enough with being shipped from his aunt to his uncle and back again. The only choice left is you, since Arbron and Aximili do not know enough about Earth yet. Tomorrow I have to leave again, but before I will let you all know my decision. Can you arrange a meeting this afternoon?"

Cassie was too stunned about Elfangor´s statement to say anything. She just nodded, which seemed to be enough for him. He turned and walked over to the other two Andalites. They formed a circle and appeared to talk to each other in private thought-speech. They did not take notice of her anymore, so she started to walk away.


	15. Chapter 15

Arbron looked at the three Controllers that Elfangor had brought with him. According to his friend, they were part of the Yeerk peace movement and had agreed to let him acquire them. He hesitated, which made Elfangor impatient: "Come on, Arbron, just do it. We have better things to do than standing here all day."

Arbron shot his friend an angry look, but he stepped forward and touched all three of them, combining their DNS to his own human morph. After he was finished, Elfangor and his friends said goodbye and walked to the bug fighter they had parked in the forest, out of sight. They cloaked it before departure, so no one could see them.

Arbron was left alone. For a while he stared at the empty sky, hoping that his friend would return without any serious injuries. The task given to him by Visser Three, the take over of the Andalite homeworld would not be easy to fake. But if anyone could do it, it was Elfangor. In the meantime, the rest of the group would continue to give the Yeerks as much trouble as they could.

Arbron slowly morphed to human. Knowing Aximili´s first steps with only two legs, he grabbed a branch of the nearest tree and used it to keep him standing, while he walked around it. It was not as hard as he had thought and soon he let go of the tree and walked steadily over the forest floor. He did not know he was being watched until he heard Loren´s voice say: "That was very good, Arbron. Elfangor had a lot more problems the first time he turned human."

Sensing his worry, she came over to him, put a hand on his shoulder and said: "He will look after himself and he will come back, he promised that he will not leave me and Tobias a second time, no matter what happens. Now come on, you will stay at my house, it has a cellar, big enough for six Andalites, so each of you three will have more than enough space, without needing your human morph. I have already prepared your room, with Aximili´s help."

They walked to Loren´s house in silence. After they got there and she showed him the cellar, Arbron could not stop himself from being surprised. Loren had placed flat flower pots with grass in every corner and in the middle was a big tub filled with water. She smiled as she noticed and told him:" I have a friend, her name is Jenny, she is a florist and lets me have everything I want without having to pay for it. In return I sometimes feed her dogs and go for a walk with them, when Jenny is really busy. Now enough with the explanations, I will let you get settled in. If you need anything, just let me know." She turned to leave, but then she seemed to remember something. She pulled a device out of her pocket, that somehow looked like a communicator, gave it to him and explained:" Elfangor gave me this as he said goodbye this morning. He has programmed a frequency to reach him, in case there is an emergency. But he has warned me to not use it for anything else. According to him, it can not be traced by the Yeerks, but we always have to be careful, in case he is not alone when we call him."


	16. Chapter 16

Loren waited until Tobias was on his way to school before she started setting the table for the surprise party this afternoon. It took her almost the entire morning to cook and to put the presents in the living room. Before Elfangor had left, they had gone shopping and bought Tobias two presents for each year they had not been able to be there for him, resulting in thirty from them and the rest of the Animorphs. When she was done, someone knocked at the door, but as Loren opened there was no one outside. Only a small package with a card laid on the bottom of the steps, with Tobias´ name on it. Loren picked it up and called for Arbron.

He did not answer, so she went into the cellar and called again, but still no reply. She searched all the rooms, but he was not there, he must have gone out while she was distracted. She wrote a note, then she went outside to her car and drove to her brother´s house. In the first few days he started living with her, Tobias had mentioned a cat called Dude he had while he was there. Loren wanted to try and find out if the cat was still alive and bring it home with her, if possible.

She knew that her brother had a problem with alcohol since his divorce and his house was no place for either a cat or a boy. The drive was not long. After she had arrived, she pulled the cat carrier with the valerian out of the trunk, placed it in front of the garden door and waited. It did not take long, then a small grey/light brown coloured cat came through the fence, looked at Loren curiously, but decided to ignore her and went into the carrier. Loren shut the lid, before Dude could decide to get out again. On her way home she stopped at the veterinarian where she had arranged an appointment this morning. Dude was quickly checked out, but did not have any serious diseases. The next stop was the supermarket where Loren bought a few cans of cat food, milk and cat toys, before she returned home. She took the carrier inside and made sure all doors were closed, before she let Dude out. It would take a few days before he would accept his new home and during that time he had to stay inside.

Just after the cat had been fed, Arbron came back. He was in human morph and had a mountain of cartons in his arms that were going to fall to the floor any moment, so Loren took a few and placed them at a sideboard. Arbron smiled relieved and started opening the cartons. Soon the floor was full of electronic components and tools she had never seen before. Arbron brought everything in the cellar, but he did not answer any of her questions and just shut the door to the garage. Loren shook her head. Apparently men were all the same, even those that were not humans. He reemerged just five minutes before Tobias was due home, holding something that resembled a metal box. He explained that this was the Andalite version of a picture frame, but it responded to thoughts. He had built it with components he salvaged from Elfangor´s crashed fighter and recorded a few pictures of Elfangor´s parents, Tobias´ grandparents using his own memories of them.


	17. Chapter 17

Tobias´ 12th birthday was the best he had ever had. The party went the entire afternoon and part of the evening, then it was disrupted suddenly. They had just started a morphing contest to see who was the fastest. As expected Cassie was the winner. She had just taken a second piece of cake, when Arbron turned to her and asked her about something. From one moment to the next she and Ax had really weird looks on their faces, as if they had been hypnotized. They walked out the door without noticing Loren and Arbron trying to stop them. Once they were outside, they simply disappeared without any trace. The others were left behind in shock, wondering if it was a Yeerk trap. As soon as they had regained their senses, they split up in groups to search.

Cassie was found in the forest a few hours later. Her body was cold, like she had been lying there since she had gone missing. They brought her to her parents where she could be warmed up and hopefully tell them what happened. Ax was nowhere to be seen, so the searchers, except for Arbron, decided to go home and start again early the next morning.

Loren and Tobias spent the night together in her bed. They both could not sleep, they were much too worried. They were glad as it was finally morning, so they could start the search again. They had a quick breakfast and were getting ready to leave when Arbron appeared, holding a small bag with some blue hairs he had found under a tree next to the fence. It was definitely Andalite fur, but even Arbron was not sure if it was Ax´,Elfangor´s or his own. He morphed to human and left soon after. Loren assumed that he was planning a visit to the Yeerk pool. If an Andalite had been captured, it would be the talk of the day and he would find Ax easily.

He returned two hours later, without any news. Whoever had kidnapped their friend, it was not Visser Three. The only good thing was that Cassie had woken up in the meantime and been able to tell them that she had been at a really cold place and that Ax had been there as well. She assumed where ever that had been, he was still there. Aside from this, she could not remember anything else.


	18. Chapter 18

Ax woke up in a dark, cold room. Somehow he had demorphed back to Andalite, even though he could not remember doing it. He was on something that felt like a metal table and his body was completely paralyzed, except for his head and stalks. He called out to whoever had captured him, but no one answered. He laid there, completely helpless, for what seemed to be an eternity. Then finally the door opened and Visser Three came in, followed by Visser One. They both smiled in a way that made him feel really unconfortable.

As soon as they noticed Ax was awake, Visser Three said: "So our little experiment has worked. After our last meeting I was able to collect some hair from two of you, or so I thought. I used it to test an idea we got from our Leeran hosts, to create telepathic control through your DNS, but I was disappointed that I just got an Andalite child and a human girl. I left the girl back on Earth, I assume she is dead by now, the last night was very cold. At first I just wanted to send you back too, but Visser One has other plans for you. Soon you will give us your friends, if you want it or not. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts."

At this they turned and walked out, closing the door behind them, leaving Ax to worry about the girl they had mentioned. He could not remember if it was Rachel or Cassie, but he hoped that whoever she was, was still alive. The last thing he knew before he had woken up here, was celebrating Tobias´ birthday.

He tried to move, to get down to the floor, but found that he was still paralyzed. It would not have made much sense otherwise, the Yeerks would not risk their prisoner escaping, but he had to try anyway.

He continued to lie there, staring at the ceiling, until he heard the door opening again. One Hork-Bajir came in quickly, threw him over his shoulder and then ran out again. While he did this, Ax was able to notice two other Hork-Bajir and several human controllers standing not far away, acting like guards. After the Hork-Bajir carrying him reached the end of the corridor, the others followed. A short time later, they reached the shuttle hangar and went into a transport ship. They threw Ax on the floor like a puppet. Before he lost conciousness, he saw Visser One entering and then he heard the engines start.


	19. Chapter 19

Elfangor watched the stars outside the observation window of Visser Three´s Blade ship he had been given for temporary use until his mission was finished.

His bodyguards, three humans and two Hork-Bajir, all of them friends of Arliss were standing next to him. They would arrive at the Andalite homeworld in two days and he still did not know what he was going to do. He could not allow the Yeerks to make his people into Controllers, but he also did not see a way out of it. Visser Three had told him he expected results in the first week after arrival, so he needed a plan soon.

The fact that he did not have many members of the peace movement on board that were still unhosted did not help him any. He knew a few Andalites from his time as Aristh, that were possibly open to let a Yeerk infest them if it could help end the war, but if they were not on the planet at the time, he would not have much time to come up with a different plan.

He turned to the human controllers and was about to suggest to take a break and eat something together, when there was a flash of light outside and one of the engines exploded. The other made a strange noise and stopped soon after, leaving them dead in space. Elfangor, in his Andalite body, tried to hold on the nearest console, but he was knocked to the floor before he could grab it. He went flying to the door at the other end of the room and slammed against it, almost losing consciousness.

One human controller was as his side instantly. She pulled him up to his hooves and looked into his eyes to make sure he was okay. After she was satisfied that he was not going to collapse any moment, she led him out the room, towards the medbay. He smiled to himself. Since they got to know each other, Temiss 227 and her host Amalia had acted like a mother hen towards him. He was grateful for that, it made him miss his own mother a bit less. He enjoyed spending time with the others as well, but he still liked Temiss the most. When they reached their destination, she ordered him to morph human, so that she could check him out. The examination did not take long and after she was finished, she told him to stay where he was, while she went and got food for both of them.

They ate in silence, just enjoying each others presence and Elfangor started to hope that if he just introduced a few Yeerks like her to his own people, maybe he could convince some of the younger ones, that were more open to new ideas to work together with them, though that was probably just wishful thinking, but he would never know until he tried.

But that would not be a problem unless they could repair the engines, because the food for the hosts was not going to last forever and when it was gone, they would all starve slowly. They were in an area of space with a lot of barren planets, where no one could live, so they had no way to get more from somewhere else and they also had no hope of any passing ships that could get them out of here.


	20. Chapter 20

They kept searching for Ax until it got too dark to continue, but there was no trace of him. Even Arbron in his Taxxon tracker morph could not find him.

After that they resigned and hoped that their friend would come back on his own, but they all knew that the chance was getting smaller with every hour he was missing, especially if the Yeerks got him somehow.

The next days no one could really concentrate on their life without getting in a situation where they were reminded of Ax. Tobias went to the mall every day for several hours, just watching the Cinnabon and thinking of the many times he had to stop his friend from eating too much. Cassie and Rachel were spending most of their spare time at Loren´s house, talking about their experiences with Andalites in human morph. Her stories about Elfangor´s behaviour the first few months of their marriage were even worse than Ax had ever been.

She told them that she had to constantly keep locks on every cupboard with food, even on her fridge, just to keep him from eating everything he could find whenever he was alone. The first visit to her parents they made together had been the worst time of her entire life. After that she did not bring him there again, instead she scheduled the visits to times he was at work.

It had not even been the food, but the fact that he did not know much about humans at the time and constantly asked her parents questions everyone should know and played with sounds the entire time, which did not leave them with a good impression of him.

Afterwards she had admitted to herself that it had been probably a little early to introduce her alien husband to her family, without teaching him a bit more about humans. It got better after they had lived together for a year, but even then he was sometimes overwhelmed by the sense of taste.

Arbron stayed in the woods most of the time, practising tail-fighting on the trees. He said he had gotten out of exercise during his time as a Taxxon Nothlit, but everyone else thought that he just needed an excuse to keep himself from worrying about his best friend Elfangor and his brother. He was the one that had known Elfangor the longest. They had grown up together, went to the Academy at the same time and served on the same dome ships during military training. No one else could imagine what he was going through at the moment while his friend was stuck in the middle of the enemy lines without him, so they let him have as much time to himself as he needed.


	21. Chapter 21

Cassie had just left her parents´ house, ready to go to school, when she started to feel disorientated. Her head began to pound like something invisible was playing drums with it. Next to her was a cornfield on a steep slope that was almost ready for harvest. She stumbled, fell and rolled about halfway into it, until she was finally stopped. She laid there, unmoving, her closed eyes upwards. The plants in front stayed untouched and no one had seen what just happened.

When she did not show up at school, Rachel, usually sitting next to her, started getting worried. As soon as she left the classroom during first break, she pulled out her mobile phone and called Cassie´s father, asking him if she was sick today. He answered that she had felt fine when she had left this morning.

After Rachel told him that she had never arrived, he got worried as well and promised that he would call the police. Then Rachel ended the call and went to find the others to tell them that Cassie was missing.

After hearing this, no one could really concentrate on their teachers and were just glad when school was over. They met Loren and Arbron, already morphed Taxxon and in the process of tunneling underground, in the forest. They agreed that the others would morph into birds and try to spot Cassie from above.

They were searching for about an hour, when Arbron contacted them:" I am in a field near Cassie´s house. The scent of her is very strong, so she was here this morning, but now she is gone and I can not smell her anywhere else. I am coming back now."

The others went back to Loren´s house, defeated. Now that they were missing two members of their team with no way of knowing what happened to them, they were getting sure that it had to do something with the Yeerks. If they were on to them, they needed to be extra careful. Ax was still missing and Cassie had just disappeared for the second time, so the team decided to stop their activities until they were back safely or they had found out what exactly was going on.

The police search, initiated by Cassie´s father did not bring any results either, not that it was a surprise. One or more of them had to be controllers and they were probably manipulating the non controllers. This left her parents in shock for days. Rachel and Jake spent their entire free time trying to comfort them, knowing they had much better chances to get her back, but they could not exactly tell them that. If they tried to tell then that a group of children, including their own daughter, one adult and three aliens, with only one of them currently available, turned into animals and fought an impossible war against parasitic alien slugs, they would simply believe that all of them had gone crazy.


	22. Chapter 22

She opened her eyes and looked around. The room she was in reminded her of something, but she did not remember what. On a table next to her bed was a plate with bread, meat and cheese and a glass of water. She was hungry, so she started eating. After she was halfway finished, the door opened and a young, red-haired woman came in. When she saw that her guest was awake, she took a chair, sat down on it and said: "I found you this morning, while I was walking with my dog. My husband and his friends brought you here. Do you remember what happened?"

She shook her head and replied: "I remember nothing, not even my own name. My head feels like it is going to explode any moment." The woman sighed:" Then I am going to bring you to the nearest hospital to make sure that you do not have any serious head injuries. I am hoping that your memory will return eventually."

The woman left the room and closed the door. She stood up from the bed and looked into the mirror. Her face had a few bruises, but nothing serious. Her short brown hair looked like a mess. For a second she believed that she saw a girl with long blonde hair behind herself, but that was probably just her imagination.

She got back into the bed and picked up the water. After she had drunk it, she suddenly felt very tired. Before she fell asleep, she thought she heard the woman whisper: "I have contacted the Visser and he agrees to let me use her for our plan. He does not have need of her anymore."

Then the woman´s footsteps went away from the door, leaving her confused. She did not know what a "Visser" was, though she thought she should. It sounded familiar somehow. But what she definitely knew was that she had to get out of here, before the woman could put her plans into action. She tried to pull herself up again, but found that she did not have the strength. Her head fell back on the cushion and soon she was fast asleep.

She came around again after someone picked her up and carried her out of the room. She opened her eyes for a second, but immediately closed them when she saw that the man carrying her was about to look at her, to make sure he did not realize she was awake. If he did know that, then she would not have a chance of escaping. The man walked a short distance, then he put her down again on something that felt like metal. Shortly after she heard some kind of plane engines starting.

She kept her eyes closed until she heard him leave the room, then she looked around carefully. After she realized that no one was here at the moment, she began to concentrate on finding anything that could be used as a weapon. She only found an old, rusty, but sharp knife in a corner. It was not much, but it had to be enough. She walked over to a spot near the door, where she could not be seen immediately and held the knife in one hand, ready to use it as soon as he came back in.


	23. Chapter 23

It did not take the man long to come back. As soon as he entered and closed the door, she stepped out from her hiding place and stabbed him with the knife before he even noticed her. Then she instinctively put her hand on his shoulder, concentrating on him, though she had no idea why. After a few seconds he fell limp and she let him slide to the ground. She took the keys from him, stepped outside and locked the door. The corridor was empty at first, but soon she had to hide from something that looked like a giant centipede with a big mouth and several red eyes.

As soon as she had seen it, she remembered everything. Her name was Cassie and she was part of a group calling themselves the Animorphs. She had become sick while walking to school one morning, fell on her head and apparently lost her memory until she had seen the Taxxon. Now the only thing she had to do was getting out of here and that was not going to be easy as she knew that she was on a Yeerk spaceship at the moment. 

Cassie looked around, making sure that no one saw her, then she began to morph into the Controller she had just acquired. After she had finished, she continued to walk along the corridors, trying to look like she belonged here. Soon she reached the bridge, which was staffed with only one Taxxon and one Hork-Bajir. Through the observation window, she saw Earth far below her. In a voice that almost sounded like Visser Three in one of his moods, she shouted: "I have checked the room of the female prisoner. She has escaped. You better find her very soon or I will give you to Visser One and you know what she will do to you." The Taxxon and the Hork-Bajir had left the bridge faster than she could blink.

Now alone, Cassie stepped up to the panel in front of her, trying to find the location of the fighter bays. It did not take as long as she had expected and soon she was running towards them with as much speed as possible. Once she was safely inside a bug fighter, she heard the Controllers banging on the doors of the hangar. But she had already powered up, the controls of the fighter were almost too easy, and was now ready to blast her way out. The Controllers seemed to realize this as well and did not want their ship damaged, because the outer doors were opening.

Once she was outside, Cassie turned the fighter towards Earth. The first part of the flight was without problems, but then she noticed the engines stuttering, just as she had gone through the atmosphere and cursed. The only thing she needed now was an empty fuel tank. Realizing that there was no way she could avoid a crash, she quickly demorphed and then remorphed to cockroach, the only animal she knew that could survive this.

She crawled as far into the back as she could and waited for the inevitable. She did not know where she was going to crash, but if the luck she had so far was holding, it would be somewhere around her hometown. It felt like an eternity, but then the fighter finally hit. She demorphed after she was sure that she would not be hit by debris and looked around. The top had completely shattered, making it easy to get out.

Once she was standing on Earth again, she felt happier than she had ever been since becoming an Animorph. The only thing around her were trees and they looked like it was late autumn. But she was sure that she had gone missing in early summer, so either she had landed on the other side of Earth, somewhere in Europe, or she had opened another Sario Rip. If it was the second, then she would have a problem. To close it, she would need another fighter, which would be difficult. She knew that she had no chance to get back if she stayed where she was, so she started walking.


	24. Chapter 24

It took Cassie more than four hours to walk, before she finally found the first road sign. It was written in a language she could not read, which meant that she had been lucky and did not create a Sario rip. The language barrier was not really a problem, she saw a plane on the sign, which meant there was an airport somewhere, she just had to get to it, morph something small, get on the first plane home and then demorph in the bathroom. No one would notice an extra passenger aboard a plane with a few hundred people on it, at least she hoped so.

After two more hours, she finally reached the entrance of the airport building. She entered and looked around for information of the departures. It did not take long to find a plane with a destination close to her home. It would take off in an hour, so she had enough time to morph and get on board. She went to the gate where the flight would take off from, got into the nearest toilet and morphed to wolf spider.

She was able to crawl over the walls without being noticed. She got to the luggage registration of her flight and climbed on the next suitcase she could find. While all the luggage was taken to the plane, she hid out of sight, until she noticed to door of the transport department was finally closed. She demorphed immediately as she suspected she had not much time left and it would be a long flight. She hid in the shadows at the far end between the suitcases and relaxed.

After a while she fell asleep and was woken up again by the plane shaking during what was hopefully a landing and not a crash. She waited, ducked into the shadows, until she heard the door opening. She morphed to spider again as quickly as she could and hid inside the side pocket of a bag. Once she felt it being taken off the luggage claim, she crawled out and over the walls until she was able to find a toilet. She demorphed and then remorphed to osprey, flying out a window she had seen being left open.

It felt good to be in the air again. Soon she could see the forest and her parents house. It was night, no one would notice her sneaking inside. But as soon as she opened the door, she heard someone breathing quietly. Whoever it was had to have acquired her somehow without her noticing and it could only be Loren or Arbron, the other four would have been missed at home and at school. She closed the door as silently as she could before she walked toward the bed and shook the person awake.

Within seconds her double shot up from the bed, looked at her with wide open eyes and turned on the light. Only then Cassie noticed the owl sitting on her desk. Her double followed her eyes and smiled: "Tobias and I have been here every night, we have taken turns sleeping every two hours. Then her double began to demorph and soon Loren was standing in front of her. She hugged Cassie and whispered: "We have been worried about you, but we knew that you would come back eventually. Tobias and I will go now, but we hope that we can meet at my house after school and you can tell us everything."

Then Loren went to the window, opened it, morphed to owl and joined Tobias, who was already waiting for her outside. Cassie stepped towards it and watched Tobias and his mother fly away until she could not see them anymore, before she got into bed.


	25. Chapter 25

Directly after school the Animorphs met in Cassie´s barn. After making sure that her father was not going to interrupt, she began to tell her story about the capture and the difficult way home. By the time she was finished, they were all staring at her. Arbron was the first to speak: "So you can fly a bug fighter, is that correct?" Cassie nodded and replied:"It surprised me, too. From what I have seen of the Yeerks, I thought their technology would be far too complex for humans."

Arbron looked at her thoughtfully and said: "I might have an idea how we could use this to our advantage, but I will need to think about it for a few more hours, before I can make out a plan. I will get back to you soon." Then he morphed to human and left before anyone else could say anything. The others just stared after him. All of them had the feeling that they would not like this at all.

They were correct. Arbron returned a few hours later, he was Andalite again and chased by two Hork-Bajir. After they were almost at the barn, he turned around and hit them with his tail before they could react. The Yeerks came out soon after and he picked them up and held them in the direction of the other Animorphs.

Then he said: "If each of you acquires one Yeerk and one Hork-Bajir, I will let you know my plan. But we must hurry, they will wake up soon and I do not want to be here when they do. Their Yeerks will be dead, but they still hate Andalites for what has happened to their homeworld. You will be better off explaining things to them without me here, at least at first."

The Animorphs looked at each other, then Cassie stepped forward and touched the Yeerk in Arbron´s left hand, before she moved to the Hork-Bajir. The others quickly followed her example, then the first Hork-Bajir started to come around. Arbron took the Yeerks and headed towards the forest. Soon he was out of sight.

The second Hork-Bajir had woken as well and now they were trying to get up. They finally stood after having difficulties resulting of their long time as Controllers. The Animorphs introduced themselves and the Hork-Bajir followed their example. Their names were Jara Hamee and Ket Halpak and they were the first free Hork-Bajir in over twenty years."

Ket and Jara were thankful for their freedom, but they were going to be a problem. No one could think of a place to hide two aliens that looked like lawn-mowers on two legs. After a while, Cassie finally had an idea. She had gone hiking in the mountains with her parents two years ago. They had seen a valley that was almost undetectable if you did not know what to look for, it would be ideal. But the problem was that they needed to go at night to avoid other hikers accidentally spotting them, which meant Loren, Arbron and possibly Tobias had to go alone, the others could not risk getting caught sneaking out or in their rooms.


	26. Chapter 26

They finally reached Visser One´s ship after four days in Zero space. Ax spent the time strapped to a bed, heavily drugged and barely aware of what was happening around him. After he had been taken on the ship, they allowed him to wake up slowly. Two more days later his head started to clear and he noticed more and more of his surroundings. Then they began to inject him with another drug in regular doses. He tried to resist, but they ordered two Hork-Bajir to hold him. At first he felt nothing, but after some time Visser One began telling him stories about how his friends had betrayed him and let him get captured. He refused to even think about it, but soon he realized that there was a part of him that was beginning to believe them. He tried to fight that part, but it felt like attacking windmills, as the man in that story that Elfangor had told him after he had gotten rescued from the ocean, had done.

Ax did not remember the man´s name, but it did not matter. After about one month Visser One came to him and announced that he was now ready to return to Earth. They drugged him again and then put him on a shuttle to Earth, that was set on autopilot. He started thinking clearly again after he found himself in front of Loren´s house. He had no idea how he had gotten from the shuttle to here.

Tobias was the first to see him after he came back from school. He nearly threw him to the ground, he looked happy to see him again. Probably they had believed him to be dead. Ax himself felt nothing, though he knew that he should have been happy as well. Maybe it was the best to stay away until he could figure out his feelings. Tobias raced inside and called all the others, telling them that Ax was back. They came as quickly as they could, all saying that it was good to have him back. Ax himself said nothing, he could not think of anything. He knew that the people here were his friends, but right now they might as well be strangers. They all looked at him surprised after he had declined to eat anything while in his human morph.

Instead he just apologized and told them that he was tired and would go back to his scoop. He did not wait for their reaction, he turned and walked towards the forest as fast as he could. It was a long way and he needed to be there in time to demorph. After he arrived he had only half an hour left, so he quickly demorphed, closed all four eyes and went to sleep.


End file.
